Abstract
The MRC machine-usable dictionary contains 150,837 words and up 26 linguistic and psycholinguistic attributes for each. The attributes are from sources that are publicly available but are difficult to obtain and structure into a single dictionary. Three utility programs are described that permit the selection of words defined by a set of specified attribute values and the selection of attribute values for a set of specified words. These programs permit the construction of word sets for psycholinguistic experiments that control for the attributes specified in the dictionary. The dictionary may also be of use to researchers in artificial intelligence and computer science who require psychological and linguistic descriptions of words.
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I am grateful to Professor Coltheart, Philip Quinlan, and Roger Mitton for making available their version of the MRC database (produced under grant SPG 977/912 from the Medical Research Council) and to those who constructed each of the data sets included in the present version. Copies of the dictionary, full documentation, and the utility programs are available for research purposes on magnetic tape in a variety of formats (any of; 800, 1600,6250 BPI densities, ISO/ASCII, EBCDIC, BCD character codes; labeled for ANSI, ICL VME, none; formatted as fixed, variable, formatted). A modest charge will be made to cover mailing and the cost of the tape. The database can be obtained from Oxford Text Archive, Oxford University Computing Service, 13 Banbury Rd., Oxford 0X2 6NN, England.
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Wilson, M. MRC psycholinguistic database: Machine-usable dictionary, version 2.00. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers 20, 6–10 (1988). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03202594
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03202594